The importance of a director:

-Looking at J.A Bardem and the mechanics of his style.

He used delicate and studios frame composition, the variety of shot sizes in one single scene, dynamic editing that hold together the narrative rhythm, spatial relations, camera movements. He always understood cinema to be a source of entertainment. And entertainment is the means of pulling the spectators out from their own spectacle and direct them into a different world. This was created through the use of decoupage. Although Montage is a form of editing that creates a wholeness out of fragments, that often suggest a discontinuous representation of reality, decoupage on the other hand breaks a spatio-temporal whole, meaning it belongs to both time and space.  Bardem follow the length and formal tone of the composition within a frame, and he uses a number of closer shots, to enhance the story and to reinforce the important elements within one scene; this allows for a great a dynamic that was impactful through editing of a single scene. By the way he followed the rules of continuity through decoupage, it forced the audience to focus where the directors placed the cues, wherever it seemed to be pst relevant. His frames allowed the space for objects or actors to fill the foreground while action also was happening in the background. Bardem’s camera style was used to express his style, and these movements were a way to show to the audience what the director wants to portray to us.

Reading- A Man Of Excess by Paul Schrader on Jean Renoir

This reading is a conversation that ranges from reflections of a director through historical significance, and the analysis of film techniques. It goes on to determine the individual style a director had, and how it impacted the way they created their films. A screenwriter, director and former critic, Paul Schrader talks about the filmmaker Jean Renior and others including Bresson. I saw this to be relevant, as I am on a process to discovery who I am as a filmmaker, and my working methodology.

The filmmaker Jean Renior had a film style that was artistic and captured humanist values that lead him to the title of the godfather to the post-war European art cinema. His films were a mixture of humanism, comedy, technical innovation, all based around a social basis. he not only approaches the film as an actor, but he has the ability to have an intellectual depth of field. He can see how everything will work before he starts anything. He now how the performances will go, where the camera will move to. The interview goes on to talk about how the director is also the editor and the camera operator. The director sits in front of the monitor, and can playback the scene until it is right. They admire that every shot is a new set up, and the notion of continuity is contingent on a master shot. In class we have tested this out, by focusing on one shot at a time, and having every one taken from a new perspective. This shows how far you can go to get the perfect scene, with the best individual shots. Another point that was brought up was the secrets of fluid editing is having the actors’ movements force the cuts, and I tried to do this in the stair scene that was created in class. I made the cuts in a way that the actors movements went into the next shot. This allowed for a greater impact on the audience and easier and more realistic to watch.

Notes from ‘Difference and Repetition: On Guy Debord’s Films’ by Giorgio Agamben

“-There are two transcendental conditions of montage: repetition and stoppage. 

 -Repetition restores the possibility of what was, renders it possible anew.

 -Memory restores possibility to the past. 

 -Stoppage: is the power to interrupt, the ‘revolutionary interruption’. 

 -Stoppage shows us that cinema is closer to poetry than prose. 

 -At the heart of every creative act there is an act of de-creation. 

 -De-creating what exists, de-creating the real, being stronger than the fact in front of you. Every act of creation is also an act of thought, and an act of thought is a creative act, because it is defined above all by its capacity to de-create the real.”

Montage: ‘The Idea of montage in Soviet Art and Film’ by David Bordwell

Montage was used to create a narrative to create metaphors, control rhythm and make significant points within a scene/shot. it is known as the assemblage of shots that work together to create a new synthesis, and an overall meaning. Montage consists of fundamental principles which include, assemblage of heterogenous parts, juxtaposition of fragments, and the demand for the audience to make conceptual connections. It comes together through the strategy of assemblage in the media elements that bring together a shot. Montage guides the audience in a specific direction or desired mood, which is the backbone of all cinema. The camera acts like a mechanical eye according to Bordwell, and he states, “I, a machine, am showing you a world, the likes of which only I can see”. This phrase is correct in the essence of cinema, as the audience can only see what the camera allows. It has the power to determine the story and expectations for the audience to follow. It determines what we see, how we feel, and what we come to think.

Throughout the blog posts I wish to investigate the writings of a filmmaker who has theorised, or written in depth, on their craft; and consider the actual relationship between their writing and their filmmaking. To understand the concepts of scene coverage properly I have put aside a couple of days to read through readings and comment on them towards this methodology of working. This also goes back to my interest in research The first reading is ‘Decoupage’ by Timothy Barnard.

Decoupage is a way of reproducing and creating through a simple yet complex form, and it cuts up the script to create a detailed plan for shooting. It involves the camera directions, stage directions, actor directions, and where the cuts will be between shots. Decoupage is the name given for the choice of shots, through the camera angles and movements. Andre Bazin suggests that decoupage is seen as a composition and camera movement, and an example of this is that the shots change when the camera changes position. Mise-en-scene is seen through the decoupage, as there are plans of the shots that conceive a certain kind of editing. Within this reading, Barnard suggests that each set-up of the camera indicates an attitude in the viewer’s mind. And this is true, because wen we see a specific shot, depending on the coverage it has, it creates expectations within the audience that we receive from the cues within the frame. He states that the camera position is a word that “combines the sense of creating spatial disposition and physical relations between things on the one hand and of adopting a mental attitude towards them on the other”.

“The relation between form and content are not the same as those between a container and its contents, a bottle and a liquid, but more like those between a shell and a shellfish. The former is in no way a superfluous, interchangeable form but a specific architecture secreted by a shapeless flesh whose death would otherwise leave no trace.” ~Andre Bazin

Andre Bazin is a writer and thinker of cinema, and has quite an impact on critics, theorists and filmmakers. As part of the Research and Reflection, I will be investigating Bazin and his writings, and it will be broken up into three sections, Mise-en-scene, montage and decoupage, this will go over multiple bog posts. I will be considering:

-The precision/vagueness of their definitions;

-The various meanings accorded them by different thinkers, and at different points in  cinema history;

-The notion that one may have supremacy over the other;

– and their actual relevance to filmmaking practice, or to an individual filmmaker.

Mise-en-scene:

-Looking at other writers of cinema, I have made this blog post in reference to ‘Film Art: An Introduction’, by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson.

The filmmaker shapes the viewers perceptions of the film by the creative decisions of mise-en-scene, and it all comes together to engage the audience to specific scenes and shots. Mise-en-scene is used to create realism, and allowing the performance to look as naturally possible. The components of Mise-en-scene are Setting, Costume and Makeup, Lighting, Staging, Space and Time. I just want to focus in on Staging, Space and Time, that ties in the class activities that have been completed, compared with this research.

1.Staging: The director controls everything that the audience sees onscreen, where the cinema allows for the freedom and creativity, through expression and movement that director wants to convey. A main point within staging is the actors and their movements. Bordwell and Thompson go on to say how the scene is put together through the actor’s performance and it is crucial in creating the overall targeted outcome; however just from the activities done in class I would have to disagree. Yes, the actors make the shot/scene/film more effective, however I like delving into the direction of coverage that Paul has sent us on. We haven’t looked at actors as such, we have looked at the coverage of a scene, the staging of the actors, the camera shots and movements, and the framing. A great shot can be made without the perfect appearance, gestures and facial expression from the actors, and this is seen by what we have made in class.

2. Space: Mise-en-scene offers the audience cues for guiding our attention through the frame, emphasising certain elements. Balanced shots are normally the standard shot, however unbalanced shots can sometimes create a greater effect, and this can work in the filmmakers advantage, as it creates expectation for the audience, as we prepare ourselves for something else to come into the frame. Bordwell and Thompson suggest that mise-en-scene structures space in ways that guide the audiences’ eyes.

3. Time: Through mise-en-scene, the director has control over not only what we see, but they determine when we see it, and how long for. The director determines the speed and direction of a shot, which creates cues for the audience to follow. Mise-en-scene arouses expectations in the audience, and creates impressions of a scene that is created from the formal expectations. These expectations then change as the viewer’s eyes explore the frame.

Reflection involves the notion of thinking and learning, as we reflect in order to learn, and therefore we are learning from reflecting. We go through a mental reflection. It is a process with a chosen medium, where we shape and model the content of our reflection into reflective writing. It is all about learning from reflecting and the reflections from your writings itself. According to the manner in which you reflect, you will learn different things. Reflection is actually a word that in some contexts is an academic study.

The idea is to learn from everyday experiences. Looking out for images and metaphors that represent what we base our thinking around, and these act as our referencing system. It is about reflecting upon the direct observation from our actions and reactions in relation to the activities in which we partake. From this we have a greater understanding of the system that we use, then we can modify it to our own reflections. When situations arise that are new, we are able to questions this and challenge it in order to understand it properly, along with discussing events that have been experienced by several people, where sharing being reflective, and a learning resource.

This post is to consider how this studio will investigate through research and practice the planning and production of a scene. By the end of this studio we will come to  form our own methodology of working. From this journey I would like to know more technical elements from the camera and sound, to help with the coverage of a scene, and talking about scene coverage, I want to explore this more through class, peers and external sources. I want to be able to see a scene and cover it in the best way. Sitting here now, I am finding it hard knowing what my own methodology will be about, so this is what I want to mainly explore. I want to be standing in front of the class for the 3 minute proposal report, and know where I want to be heading, and what I find interesting. Something that I want to research and understand more thoroughly. I already like the idea of ‘research by practice’, and the idea of framing, so I want to investigate these further. I have deconstructed scenes by other filmmakers, and I wish to investigate other directors methodology so I can further my knowledge on scene coverage and personal cinematic style.